


Foreign

by CorsetJinx



Category: Dishonored (Video Game)
Genre: Adaptation, Gen, Language Barrier
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-05-28
Updated: 2016-05-28
Packaged: 2018-07-10 20:02:47
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,548
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7004455
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/CorsetJinx/pseuds/CorsetJinx
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The Whalers are trained assassins, kidnappers, information gatherers. Nothing at all like he's used to - and if he wants to stay he needs to learn.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Foreign

**Author's Note:**

> Introduction to Ven, a few weeks after his recruitment to the Whalers.

Ven reports to Rinaldo when told to do so, gloved fingers careful over the hurriedly written note an irate Rulfio had scribbled. He surprises his superior when he blinks in to the space Rinaldo uses for a training area – one of the mostly intact rooms in this former commerce building filled with awkwardly stuffed dummies and shelves meant to provide an obstacle course to help Whalers get used to their powers. Rinaldo, without his mask and surprisingly younger than Ven had expected, looks him up and down before gruffly asking what he needed.

Extending the hand which held the note and watching as the senior Whaler took it, Ven let his weight shift uneasily from foot to foot. He had a suspicion of what might be written on the slip of paper he’d just handed over, but waits for Rinaldo to read it. A frown gathers at the edges of the older man’s mouth as he looks over the message, brow furrowing the faintest bit.

When Rinaldo looks up Ven looks down and to the side, focusing on the loose floorboard a foot and a half to his right. He can’t see any nails sticking out but if someone were to step on it, or trip over it, they would have a hassle regaining their footing. Silence stretches out almost uncomfortably as the senior Whaler takes stock of him and part of Ven wonders if Rinaldo sees the same as Rulfio did.

“It isn’t often Rulfio hands off recruits like this.” There’s a rustle and Ven drags his eyes up to catch the movement which is responsible – its habit but he relaxes a little when he sees that it’s just his superior tucking the note away. Once that’s done Rinaldo folds his arms in an expectant manner and Ven straightens up under the scrutiny.

He’s not sure if he’s supposed to respond or not, what he’d learned on the ship now seemed useless compared to what it seemed he was supposed to already know.

“Are you going to tell me how it is possible you possess one of the greatest talents with transversals and yet you are inept with a blade?” Rinaldo poses the question with a faintly arch tone, one Ven doesn’t know how to place.

Still, he’s been asked a question and it seems like an answer is expected this time.

“I’m not… used to using one.” He can tell that the thickness of his accent surprises the older man, as it has some of the other Whalers that have spoken with him before. Never for too long, but enough to satisfy their curiosity. Ven knows the shrug he allows himself is out of place but he does it anyway, making himself meet his superior’s measuring stare. “Mud larks don’t need them in Serkonas. The ones that try…” He trails off, trying to think of an appropriate way to say it.

It would be easier in his native tongue, but he is in Gristol now. He’ll have to learn.

“It does not go well.” Ven finishes, at a loss for better words.

Rinaldo’s eyes flick up to the side of his face and he supposes he can’t blame him. The pockmarks and burns from krust acid aren’t pretty, not on anyone, and it wouldn’t be the first time someone has thought him older than he really is because of them.

The burns are worse under the uniform, but he sees no need to explain that.

“So you are more used to using rougher tools and speed.” The older Whaler surmises, when Ven nods he seems partly satisfied. It comes as a surprise then, when Rinaldo tells him to draw his weapon, already doing so with his own and moving to stand in the center of the room. Ven obeys but there’s a particular sinking feeling in his stomach that feels all-too similar to what he’d felt before a raid on a nest of krusts.

Once he’s facing Rinaldo with the sword angled more or less how Rulfio had shown the group of novices he’d been a part of, he waited.

It didn’t take long. Rinaldo was fast – faster than Rulfio had been when teaching them the use of the blade. Rather than attempt to parry, Ven jumped back, landing on light feet as he tried to keep the same amount of distance between the older man and himself. It was obvious that this wasn’t what the senior Whaler wanted, but Rinaldo didn’t say anything as he swung again, faster, following through where he hadn’t before.

The temptation to simply drop the blade and transverse was overwhelmingly strong, but he kept one hand tight around the weapon’s hilt as he blinked across the room – doing it again just as Rinaldo was turning to face him. It put him directly in the shadow of a bookshelf but it was hardly a second later that the squad leader was on him.

It went like this – Rinaldo would strike and he would dodge, either by transversal or scrambling aside – the one time he’d lashed out he’d been met with a flick of steel and a shove backwards into the wall. Ven tried to transverse behind the older man, holding on to some small hope that it might give him some leverage, but all his sword met was a puff of displaced air before his legs were kicked out from under him.

He hit the floor solidly, felt the reverberation go through his bones, and rolled awkwardly in an attempt to regain his feet.

Rinaldo’s blade stopped him, cold against the skin of his neck. He kept himself still and fought the urge to swallow, a mix of shame and frustration making his face turn warm even in the chilly air, hand tightening on the hilt of his weapon.

A second passed and the man let him up, turning his sword over in his hands as he watched Ven get back to his feet.

The look on Rinaldo’s face wasn’t kind, but when he spoke it was simple, matter-of-fact.

“You will need to improve considerably before you are allowed to go on a mission. In addition to your regular training, you will meet me here unless stated otherwise. Is that understood?” The blade in the man’s hands gleamed when the light caught on it, but Ven nodded all the same, fixing his eyes to the spot of floor by the man’s boots.

“Dismissed.” With that, Rinaldo blinked away – to some place within the building presumably, or away. Perhaps to report to Daud.

Ven shook the thought out of his head, sheathing the blade he’d been assigned after his recruitment and hesitated, unsure where to go. He didn’t know what the time was, if he needed to report back to Rulfio or not. When he peered outside, past the boards nailed haphazardly across the windows of the building, the sky looked a little darker than it had when he’d initially been sent off.

Later afternoon, early evening at the latest, he supposed. It would be easier to tell if the temperature dropped, as it seemed prone to do in Gristol when night fell – sometimes more sharply than it did back home, which had surprised him during his first weeks on the Isle.

A snap decision, and a want for fresh air, had him blinking out of the training room and onto the roof of the building. For a moment he had to squint, temporarily blinded by the rays of the sun still emerging from the horizon. It lit the sky with streaks of orange and red, the river called the Wrenhaven turning bright gold where the light touched it. Against common sense, he stared, feeling a wistful twinge in his chest.

Dunwall, he was still learning, was considerably different from Karnaca. The capital of the Isles was a beast of industry, tightly packed buildings and seemingly never-sleeping factories. He’d seen whale trawlers out on the river as late as midnight before Daud had found him, frankly amazed the ships could operate with apparent smoothness by little more than moonlight and whale-oil lamps.

Turning his eyes away from the sight, he blinked to a more secure part of the roof – it had marginally less holes at least – and cautiously attempted to look around with the power Rulfio had called Dark Vision. Colors vanished, replaced by a warm sepia that coated everything except for distant figures in yellow. Their uniforms were all nearly identical, so he gave up on trying to identify who he might be seeing on sight alone. He had to blink several times to get the afterimage to fade, the backs of his eyes prickling as his regular sight returned.

Slowly, testing how the wood and tile beneath him responded to his weight, Ven sat. Extending an arm, he stretched, wincing at the pull of several that were unused to the sort of training they were being put through now. Lifting his other arm and crooking it over the elbow of his extended one, he carefully stretched the limb out further, turning his torso.

If he were to stay, if Daud _allowed_ him to stay, then he’d need to get better.

He could at least work some of the tension out before dinner, go back to trying on his own afterwards.


End file.
